Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Pure Propaganda: al Jazeera’s “10,000″ Dead Civilians and Cluster Bombs

Editor's Note: These casualty figures came a little too fast to avoid scrutiny.

by Scott Creighton
American Everyman

UPDATE: The two unexploded mortar rounds displayed by Jonathan Hull as “proof” that Gadhafi’s forces are using the controversial weapons indiscriminately against the people of Libya, are in fact made by a Spanish company. Spain quit using cluster bombs in 2008 but still has thousands of rounds on hand from the old stockpiles. Spain happens to be one of only 5 nations that recognize the secretive National Transitional Council of Libya as the legitimate government in that country. Qatar, home of al Jazeera and currently helping to arm the rebels, is another one.

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Since being praised by Hillary Clinton as the only media outlet telling the truth to their audience about the revolution in Egypt, al Jazeera has gone on to become one of the most obvious propaganda mills operating today.

This morning they’re running with a story on their front page titled “Libyan Death Toll Reaches 10,000” and it is 100% pure propaganda.

The dramatic claim in the sensationalized headline is backed up by absolutely no evidence and is based entirely on a claim made by an unnamed opposition leader’s statement.

Obviously it is in the opposition leader’s best interest to promote a false picture of the threat to the civilian population since that is ultimately the justification which has been used to foster support for the “humanitarian intervention” taking place in Libya right now and will be used as justification for imperialist powers such as Britain, France, and the U.S. to start their planned ground invasion.

This same opposition leader is certainly in line to cash in on tremendous perks after Gadhafi is routed from their country and the globalists come in and neo-liberalize Libya.

For al Jazeera to repeat information like this, information without any supporting evidence from a source who clearly stands to gain from it, completely discredits al Jazeera and proves for once and for all that they have become nothing more than just another Operation Mockingbird type propaganda outlet for the globalist interests.

But al Jazeera then goes even further than that.

They link a video report from an English journalist, Jonathan Hull (Time magazine’s head of the Jerusalem bureau for 3 years), who seems to be embedded with the “rebels”. His report comes out of Misurata, where the heaviest civilian casualties are reported to be occurring at this time.

The funny thing is, there are no civilian casualties featured in his report.

Not only that, but as he interviews civilians in the besieged city, they don’t claim that they are mad at Gadhafi as Jonathan mistakenly reinterprets their statements later, instead they just complain that they are caught in the cross-fire between the two warring factions. Apparently it’s that threat which seems to be motivating them to leave… understandably.

Hull then goes on to feature a segment in his report that claims to show exploded rounds fired by Gadhafi forces. Coincidentally, they look curiously similar to the old Qassam rockets fired out of the Gaza strip and collected as “proof” by the Israeli’s that they are the victims in that conflict.

The fact that Jonathan Hull served as Time magazine’s Jerusalem bureau chief for 3 years may or may not factor into that.

Along with those mangled rounds Hull is trying to use as “proof”, there are also what appears to be two unexploded Spanish made cluster bomb munitions. This, according to Hull, serves as proof that Gadhafi is using weapons deemed to be illegal by most international bodies for their indiscriminate killing potential.

Though the ban on the use of cluster bombs has been adopted by 108 nation states and ratified by over 40 of them, ironically, Israel and the U.S. among very few others, refuse to classify these weapons as WMDs and both continue to use them in their aggressive wars.

“As one of the countries that did not ratify the treaty, the United States said that cluster bombs are a legal form of weapon, and that they had a “clear military utility in combat.” It also said that compared to other types of weapons, cluster bombs are less harmful to civilians.” BBC

We used cluster bombs quite extensively in our illegal invasion of Iraq.

These relevant facts and the english written on the side of these rounds, the Spanish made MAT-120, which would indicate their point of origin is certainly not Libya, is lost on Mr. Hull at least in so far as his report is concerned. Apparently you can still order these off the internet website of the manufacturer, which could also explain how the PR guys making this report got their hands on them.

Trivialities like these would simply cloud the issue I suppose.

The 100,000 dead civilians and the use of cluster bombs are the new pro-war talking points and they are being repeated as fact almost everywhere on the news and on the blogs. Problem is, there simply is no evidence of either and Jonathan Hull’s “reporting” is long on propaganda and short on evidence.
Those two cluster bomb rounds could have come from anywhere. They could have been duds from a test range in Navada for all we know.
Here’s the other thing. With all these embedded “journalists” helping promote the EU’s promised 1,000 troop “humanitarian Ground Invasion Force”, and with all those dead civilians and supposed use of illegal munitions by Gadhafi’s forces, one would think that one of those hundreds of reporters would have captured a video or a picture of these illegal rounds raining down on civilians in Libya like they did in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.
Like these…
Here is an Israeli solder prepping a White Phosphorus round..

 Here are some photos of illegal rounds being used indiscriminately on the population centers in Gaza…

… and…

And here is the result of White Phosphorous rounds on a human body…


Pictured above is proof. Proof that deadly weapons were being unleashed on a largely defenseless population.

Yet this is not what we see in Libya.

Instead what we have in Libya is a carefully scripted propaganda campaign being promoted by the MSM and now by al Jazeera as well.

It is worth noting that al Jazeera is out of Qatar and owned by the Qatar Media Corporation and that the Emir of Qatar, HAMAD BIN KHALIFA AL-THANI, recently admitted that they “may” be sending heavy weapons into Libya despite that being strictly forbidden by UN resolution 1973.

It is also worth noting that Qatar, al Jazeera’s home base,  is a monarchy and a puppet regime of the imperialists France, the UK, and the US… just like the “rebels” want to set up in Libya.

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